[Top Giver Series] Doing Business Beyond Self with David Gonzalez of Simply The Coolest

Jeremy Weisz 5:35
I feel like whenever we talk, it’s, it’s it’s really powerful. Um, so who do you consider the biggest givers in this universe in your givers universe,

David Gonzalez 5:46
man, biggest givers in this universe, Jimmy. So a couple of them are no longer living there. My two favorite heroes, human living heroes and one of them are you know, Ever that have lived that we know are Buckminster Fuller and Nikola Tesla.

Jeremy Weisz 6:06
Hmm. What about

Unknown Speaker 6:08
that is living that is living.

David Gonzalez 6:13
Muhammad Yunus Grameen Bank,

I’d say

Unknown Speaker 6:24
there’s a couple of others that let me

David Gonzalez 6:31
Geez, that’s a really good question. If because my brain goes to like the penultimate, like,

Unknown Speaker 6:38

biggest of the big

David Gonzalez 6:41
I, the there’s a gentleman named Manoj Bhargava, that he’s the founder of fire for our energy is a for our energy or five hour, five hour five hour energy. And he he pledged to give 99.9% of his he’s worth over 4 billion. In dollars, humanity, for doing for things that will serve the most people that will like he’s looking at taking using engineering and innovation and the best minds available to create how can we make the most impact with the that that’s going to help the biggest swats of humanity not like you know what I mean? So like one of the things he did is he created these these mechanisms that go out into the ocean, and they’re like the size of a big diesel engine. And it uses solar this the sun’s power to evaporate this the saltwater, then it takes that saltwater. The solar power also takes a generator and pumps back the evaporated water and it’ll do 1000 gallons of fresh clean drinking water hour and you can put a whole a whole tanker with these things on them and have an array of 1000 of these. So you could be doing over a million gallons of water like With like, no. And so he saw that but like, that’s one of them. Another one is, you know, kind of like stuff that Bill Gates is doing. And so yeah, to me givers are not about, like, Oh, I gave this much to this fund or this foundation, but they’re doing things for all of humanity and not just the rich, not just the poor, but that when it gets done, yeah, I’m a big, like Buckminster Fuller had this spot. And he, you know, there were 4 billion people on the planet when he was when he said this, which was in the 70s. And he said, there are 4 billion billionaires on planet and he called it Spaceship Earth. Because this is a spaceship. We have a fuel source. It’s the sun. And we do have a protective covering. It’s called the atmosphere. And we’re hurtling through space on this spaceship and we’re just, we’re just writers on it. Like when we we came from it. But like, you know, it’s like anyone you look at it that way he also created this map that made the entire all the seven continents one because he made little triangles all over it It causes the Dymaxion map. And when you unfold it, it’s you can fold it out like this and it doesn’t have any distortion. If you if I draw something on a piece of paper, and then I put it onto a globe, it’s going to have a lot of distortion at different points. So interestingly enough on that distorted map, the United States looks about the same sizes. Africa, because Africa is down here, and the United States is here, but when you unfold the Dymaxion map, the United States fits inside of Africa four or five times Hmm.

Unknown Speaker 9:42
So

David Gonzalez 9:44
all of a sudden the entire map you see Africa is connected to Asia is connected to the North Pole which is connected to Canada which is connected to Russia, which is connected to Alaska, which is connected to the United states are just connected to South America, and you see one giant, enormous continent that you wouldn’t have been able to see the other way. And when you see it that way, you see, it’s not us versus them. You know, it’s all one big thing. And so to me, those the biggest givers are anyone who thinks of humanity as one, and not from like, a, like a Whoo, like, Kumbaya kind of sense. But literally, we are on a spaceship as one you know, we all like it’s one of the things that I’m really digging about COVID and that I thought that they would take aliens like nefarious aliens to do is to make us all you know, and I don’t think it’s done it yet. But if if things go a certain way, then he what he wrote a book called utopia or oblivion. Critical if you know critical path like those are the two options there is no like, Oh well, Mike. be okay, no, we’re either going to obliterate ourselves, or we’re going to create utopia. And the reason there’s 4 billion billionaires is because there’s enough resources on this planet on this spaceship. For every one of us to be a billionaire. The only reason we’re not is because of the way we think about things. And so that to me, like, I can’t think of anything that’s more penultimate as far as being a giver, than giving to every man, woman child, whether they’re anyone on the spectrum from good to evil, you know, rich to poor, smart to dumb, anything like that. Like, I think everybody has the right, like, equal resources. I’m not talking about socialism. I’m talking literally, there’s enough water, there’s enough food, there’s enough shelter, there’s enough all the stuff we want. There’s enough ability to travel, like anything we could possibly want. Every single one of us could have as much of it as we want.

Jeremy Weisz 11:56
So the problem is

David Gonzalez 11:58
what the problem is meant the thinking that God is here, from all the way back to when this is all stuff that he talks about. And this is crazy, like, but essentially, at one point, we were just like, ugh, you know, like kill. Like, you know, but like as far as like, we didn’t have any, like, we were just like, lived in her cave kind of thing. And then at one point, we’re like, oh, like, we figured out our area, and then somebody was like, hey, let’s put a boat in the water and see how far we can go. And then they went far and started conquering other people. And they’re like, Oh, I got all the gold. Like, gold I want more gold than that guy. And Mmm, it’s just thinking of like, well, I want to have the biggest castle and the most gold and I want to control the most people and I don’t and, and it’s just like that was that was that part of humanity? But we’ve reached a point now where that’s not necessary anymore. But there’s like, I want my god to be the God I want my temple my, you know, my my way of abortion or not abortion or like all these things that just really don’t fucking matter. They don’t matter.

Jeremy Weisz 13:14
They just try to get people to realize that those things don’t matter, because there are, you know, obviously that that thought still prevails for in certain people. Yeah, yeah.

David Gonzalez 13:26
I don’t know that’s why to me the biggest I guess the one that would give me the biggest givers are the ones that are that are that are actively working on those things so that we can get to that because it’s not going to work. If someone is if people are going to be adamant that no, we have to do things this way. And that that side is wrong and my side is right. We’re going to kill ourselves. We’re going to kill ourselves as a species.

Jeremy Weisz 14:00
You know, we were talking before we hit record. Thanks for sharing that, by the way I yeah, I’ve heard Buckminster Fuller I’ve never really studied deeply on on his work. So I definitely wrote that down. So I appreciate that

David Gonzalez 14:14
is the first time I’ve ever really come out about that like I like but the depth of which you introduced me I felt like I like there’s been times in my life where I’ve had glimpses this feeling like my mission on you know, my mission as a human is to help bring Buckminster Fuller province of Bucky or guinea pig be because he gave all of his life to humanity. And that’s to me because his his work didn’t come to fruition in his lifetime, but just much like it took 80 years before Nikola Tesla’s work started becoming, you know, Bucky, I think is going to be similar. And Is that why you say Tesla also just because of the effects that Tesla was trying to make it to where There was no meter between us and someone else. Like, oh, I want electricity, there’s going to be this person that’s going to put a meter between it, oh, I want cancer medicine, there’s going to be this company that puts, like, you know, I want to drive a car that will go, you know, 2000 miles without needing a refill, there’s going to be a company that, you know, like, there’s got to be this meter between us and the thing that’s that that’s bugging you is about eliminating that. Tesla. Yeah. Like that’s what I mean. He created power and energy structures that would make it to where you could. You could have free electricity for miles and miles and miles. Like you didn’t there was no wires necessary. You know how like now you can just like put your phone on the thing and it charges with it. It needs to physically be connected. He had a thing where he would just be like, he knew where to put these rods here. I don’t believe Tesla was a full human I jerell I genuinely believe that I don’t genuinely believe it. But I don’t disbelieve that Tesla wasn’t part something else. And I think anybody that doesn’t think that there’s a high probability and likelihood of other intelligent intelligent beings is my internet connection is getting unstable. No, I guess I do believe in Kismet and synchronicity, but my internet discuss the way I think that there’s then if you look at every single stand on the beach, all the beaches in the world, there’s that many. There’s more than that number of galaxies in the universe, and we don’t even know most of them. So the idea of us being the only intelligent lies ego so all of that it’s exorbitant. Yeah, it’s silly and so I don’t think that too Tesla was fully human. And what he was trying to do is create a real man, this is gonna sound like, I hope this doesn’t come off as conspiracy theory or nut nut case, but like we’re in COVID right now and I’m just going to speak my truth to make humans like one one hole that like no, there’s no like, Oh, I got a bigger, you know, oceanfront property and bigger yacht and a bit and I don’t know if that’s ever fixable, but, and I think everybody, nobody has to work. I don’t think to me, that’s one of the big things is to make it to where no one has to work. Like everyone can just do. Their like if every single printer right now they’re passing out 1200 dollar checks to people that made less than $75,000. If somebody was telling me yesterday, there’s people bragging about they got their 1200 dollar check. And these like, I wouldn’t be bragging about that if you’re like a big internet guru because that means you made less than $75,000 Let’s,

Jeremy Weisz 18:02
yeah, they had a picture of their Ferrari and plan

David Gonzalez 18:05
up to the world. That’s funny. That’s funny. That’s anyway that’s it. But the point

is like, oh, there COVID is the big reveal. We were talking about that. But um, yeah, I I you know, when I think about what was a dam that threw me off the, the, you had just asked me a question and I was saying, oh, that I don’t Yeah, if every single human not just in the US, but human. Got not a 1200 dollar check. But an $800 million check.

Unknown Speaker 18:51
What Would everyone do?

Jeremy Weisz 18:56
That sounds scary to me. What actually

David Gonzalez 18:58
I did talk about That. Yeah. Todd, let’s see. I I wait, what about that sounds scary to you? I mean, it depends what I guess

Jeremy Weisz 19:09
what they use it for. Right? I mean, if you have an abundance of money, yeah. What stages do people go through? Like considering maybe they haven’t had it like you look at lottery winners. I don’t know what the stats are right within a certain period of time. They blow all of it.

David Gonzalez 19:26
You haven’t think about it like what every single person decides they want to go get a Ferrari a Rolls Royce, they want to go to Vegas. I mean, they, they have so much money, they can reopen the casinos. You know, like, okay, like, things reach a point of like, Okay, you got a Ferrari. I got it for like, everybody has a Ferrari. Who cares? No, we all have Ferraris now. There’s been less.

Jeremy Weisz 19:52
Yeah, yeah, they’ve come up. So you get $800 million. They have, what do you do

David Gonzalez 19:59
if I’m part of The code Yeah, everyone, I just get it in that everyone else’s Oh, that’s different.

How is it different Tell me, Oh, it’s so different. Because if every single man, woman and child has $800 million, the things that I would probably want to think about or do would be different. They would be different I like I would want to get certain experiences that would have innate intrinsic value, because I’m the only one one of the few people that has that level of wealth. Whereas if everyone has that level of wealth, then I’m just thinking to myself, where do I derive deep joy?

Unknown Speaker 20:44
Yeah, it has nothing to do with

David Gonzalez 20:48
a presidential suite hotel of view, or like some some me really meaningful, joyful things. Yeah.

Jeremy Weisz 20:57
I’m gonna you know, like I’ll push back a little bit. bid on you. I don’t know if you would do anything different if everyone had $800 million? Or if you just had it, like, if you want an experience, I I don’t know if you would do it for the status of it, but here for the status

David Gonzalez 21:12
of it, like if, if everyone got $800 million, I would probably it would, the things that I would want and do would be more. They would be more like consumptive and egoic. Like, whereas if if everyone if I if I’m the only one that got it, yeah, I would want to do things that

Unknown Speaker 21:43
that would make everyone getting one happen.

David Gonzalez 21:49
Does that make sense? So I would feel completely free to just dive all in to the work of Buckminster Fuller and cola Tesla knows Bhargava, like people that are trying to figure out how does all of humanity win at with not the detriment of anyone?

Jeremy Weisz 22:12
So would that change from everyone who are getting it or just you?

David Gonzalez 22:18
That notion? No, no, because if everyone got it, then they’d figure it out on themselves. You know, I mean, we like Okay, everyone has $800 million everyone. Everyone prisoners in prison right now. They get all of them no matter what crime they did with a, you know, unabomber he gets $800 million, but so does the prison worker. So does everyone.

Unknown Speaker 22:44
Everyone.

David Gonzalez 22:47
Yeah, like but like, Okay, if everyone got that, like, this isn’t about everyone getting it. 100 million dollar checks is about what would they do? Right, right. If they didn’t have to work

right? You know, if no one had to work, no one, no one, no one. So like, the prison guard doesn’t have to work anymore. There’s going to be some people that say, you know what, I don’t have to work anymore, but I’m not okay with the people that are in prison that did the things that they did that were really like dangerous to humanity being on the loose, so I’m going to donate my time, who of us wants to donate our time to make sure that these people stay here and by the way, you people that are in there, sorry, but like, if let’s get you the best psychotherapists and the best psychedelic therapies to help you like, get come to, like, let’s watch that evil out of you, and then come up with some amazing test to see if they genuinely are ready to be put back into humanity. Like, dude, I’m just telling you what’s there for me, like so

Jeremy Weisz 23:48
what would you do? Okay, assuming let’s say you got $800 million. Not everyone gets a million dollars. Okay. How does that change what you do or what do you do? Oh,

David Gonzalez 24:00
Because if I if everyone gets it then I’m thinking like, oh, wow, like every it’s it’s, it’s, it reminds me of recess in school. Like, like when it was it was a field day like, there’s no homework. There’s no like the only objective for everyone is to have fun. So it’d be like, hey, shit, it’s like this is this is the absolute Disney World globally, every single person is at Disney World today. Versus Oh wow. Walt Disney’s grand, great granddaughter just found out about me heard this interview and decided she wants to give me $800 million. Right once. I don’t know if you’ve heard of her, she will not fly on a private plane. She will like us. She’s like one day she was like a teenager and had to go somewhere and there was a Boeing 747 that they put her on and she was literally the only person on there and she was like this as fuck. Like, I didn’t know that. Yeah. And she refuses. And she was she won’t even want she just flies on regular airplanes like, like and is very, very much into like, like, what the hell like people that are billionaires that you’re very, very wasteful and very like not you know so anyway, uh Yeah If only I got $800 million, I would be like, okay, let’s bring, let’s bring them Minaj bhargav as the her like I don’t even remember her name right now, people that are running the Buckminster Fuller Institute together, and let’s come up with a plan that we can help. You know, you know, like Bill Gates bill, Melinda Gates Foundation they’re working on like, there’s certain things they’re working on that I believe are questionable. And then there’s certain things that I believe they’re working that they’re working on that are amazing.

Unknown Speaker 26:03
So

Jeremy Weisz 26:04
what would you work on, like your

David Gonzalez 26:07
passion? I’d work on kind of like what I’ve done in the internet marketing space, which is curating all of the best, brightest, bleeding edge. humanists that like because I, there’s a, there’s a book out there that I haven’t yet read, but it was highly recommended. And I got the gist of it, which is, it’s a book called Winner winner takes all. And it’s basically based on the idea that a lot of billionaires that go on and they get their billions by doing really bad things, like very win lose kind of things. And that are not good for for the greater good of humanity. Or like they’re like they’re like, give or take take take and then they like real cutthroat pay practices and then they get their billions and then they’re like, Oh, I’m gonna Do the this build this big, beautiful Philharmonic Orchestra? In college I call it my name. And then I’ll have in new in Washington DC. And even though I’ve done heinous things like that could be considered crimes against humanity. But now I get whitewashed and I have a good name because I gave this center right next to the White House and like it was a $300 million project. And you just gave it but it’s got your name on it and it’s beautiful. And it goes to the arts. And it makes our country will be like, Yeah, but what about all this crap you did over here? Like, that’s not okay. It’s like a prodigal son. The prodigal son comes back and says, I’m willing to go work in the in the in the chicken coop and in the pig pen. And then the father when he sees that he’s like, Okay, he’s he’s atone for what he you know, for, for being a jerk off. Like as opposed to just be like, I got all this Money, I’m going to do something that’s really cool. And all of a sudden my name is good light. So I would you know, the part of what the person that recommended this book to me said Is she said, find me a billionaire with empathy, and then I will hold them in high regards. So I would if I got $800 million, I would find people that have true deep, what do they do when no one’s watching type of empathy? Yeah, I would fucking figure out who’s given the most anonymously, I would get a higher private detective like, like Better Call Saul style like people that really like Mike and really find out like, Who are the people that are doing the most best, generous work and aren’t taking any credit for? Well, that’s why I asked all of them and I think, yeah, I would put all of them in a think tank and it would probably be anonymous because I wouldn’t want their lives to be in jeopardy. By People that want shit. I don’t even know if I want this to be put out there on a podcast because I do believe that the world’s getting smaller and smaller, and we’re getting to know like, who like I am believing more and more that there is this this genuine fight between good and evil. I want it all versus let’s, let’s all just

David Gonzalez 29:28
I don’t know that I would have said that. But Lance for you. And

Jeremy Weisz 29:32
that’s why I was asking about in the beginning, who you consider, like some of the biggest givers because those people, those who are kind of behind the scenes, they don’t feel the need necessarily to be front and center all the time. And they’re just doing their thing. Trying to make a contribution and don’t feel as much of a need for the recognition. I guess, the way I see it. So I was curious of what you would say because there’s people like you said a couple people I’ve never heard of in Maybe they’re just kind of not giving anonymously on purpose, but they’re not seeking all of the recognition

Unknown Speaker 30:07
for it, yeah.

Jeremy Weisz 30:11
The there’s two things I want to talk about. If it is funny, like I just kind of go where the conversation takes us because originally I’m like, Yeah, I want people to know I mean, Dave is internet marketing party he does licensing he has a beauty brand but you’re such a deep thinker that we’ll just go with the deep thinking aspect and and I know we have a little bit time before you have your next call. So I had pandemic reveal in a shift going all in. So I don’t know in the last couple minutes, which one strikes your fancy of view most interesting for you to chat about.

David Gonzalez 30:51
Give me one second I’m gonna I’m gonna text my because you can edit this part out.

Jeremy Weisz 30:56
So saying, shift of going all in pandemic reveal, which is most interesting to you right now.

Unknown Speaker 31:07
When you ask the question, again,

Jeremy Weisz 31:08
you we are talking before we hit record and we’re talking about pandemic reveals. And I was gonna explore what you meant by that for yourself or what you’re seeing. Or you were saying, there’s been this shift for you of going all in.

Unknown Speaker 31:25
Mm hmm.

David Gonzalez 31:27
So is that or question I meant? Yeah. Or Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 31:34
Cool.

Jeremy Weisz 31:35
So let’s talk about going all in in the shift and maybe a little bit about what struck you to go down that path a little bit with your with your mentor sad.

David Gonzalez 31:46
Yeah, so I about three years ago, I partnered with a I’m more much more of a visionary on the traction rocket fuel network than a than an integrator.

Yeah, um, and that, thank you guys, because it’s changed my life if you’re listening, it’s been huge impact from actually talked to mark this this week. So yeah,

Jeremy Weisz 32:13
awesome. I’m gonna email when we get off and tell him you said that.

David Gonzalez 32:16
Oh, cool, thanks. So yeah, my wife and I have always run our businesses together and for you know, 20 years or so and she always we didn’t realize it until that book came into the fold that she was serving as my integrator and I was the visionary. But if we had to rate us from one to 10 on our strength and either of those, I would give myself like a six on visionary. I’m not like an off the charts visionary. I’m like, like a six, but she’s like a five on an integrator. So if we were playing, you know, arm wrestling, I was winning most of the time, which was keeping me at a, you know, hundred $250,000 a year in revenue and oh, You know, income. And then it wasn’t until I partnered with an integrator that my income more than tripled, and the workload more than diminished. But part of what that integrator His name is Gonzalo By the way, pattern noster Yeah, part of what that partnership did is key brought with it the the idea and the concept of going all in and having Extreme Ownership. And I did that so effectively, that it generated an enormous amount of success, an enormous amount of attention, an enormous amount of, of all of the trappings that come with it. And one of the negative trappings that comes with it is people more people want to do business with you. Right and opportunities. Yeah, and with one of the things that goes on was big on is when you say yes to one thing, you’re saying no to 10 things and you have to know that. And so I said no for two, two and a half years and then at the end of That two and a half year period, there was some of the things that started coming on to the plate as far as opportunities and possibilities. Were so explicit that it was like, I brought him to him. And I was like, Dude, what do you think about this? And he’s like, wow, that’s, that’s good. Yeah. You want me in on that one? Or do you want to do that one alone?

Unknown Speaker 34:21
And so I

Jeremy Weisz 34:22
know he says, say no, but let’s

David Gonzalez 34:24
do that one. Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe cuz sometimes it just makes sense, right? Like, the landlord in your building says, Hey, I think I’m gonna sell the building. I might give you first right of refusal, since you’re already a tenant. Like, that’s not necessarily something you should just blanket say no to because you said you’re saying no to all opportunities. He’s like, No, that was worth like really putting on the on the decision table. Because it could accelerate the growth of what you’re currently working on. That this is the only thing you’ve said yes to. So anyway, with that in mind, I said yes to one thing. And then as a result of saying yes to that one thing, it was a very natural yes is to a secondary thing which, which became a client to the first thing I said yes to. And then once that happened, it was like, wow, this is life’s better this way. And then a tertiary thing came along. That wasn’t as related, but it just felt like, heck, this third thing, I didn’t have to do anything operationally minded. All I had to do is just be me. Kind of like just show up kind of like, Showtime, just walk around and like say hi to people. Like it’s almost like really, you’re, you want me as a partner for that. Like, yeah, you the cache, you bring the network up, like really, you will want you as like a strategic adviser, but it almost felt like being a made man and like, okay, like you’re gonna put me in on this deal, just like cuz because of what you’ve done for the last time. 10 years ago, I was like, oh yeah. And then when I did that, I was like, Oh, this fourth one is just like that and, and everything was moving along beautifully until Fang COVID-19 pandemic global pandemic, and everything just starts to kind of like, you know, this goes on break and that like, and what seemed like it was rolling really beautifully and like it was all kind of tied in folded into each other. The pandemic has, I’ve been calling it the great reveal has really revealed that, that some of those things might have been a little bit more distracting. Now that now that it’s kind of like when you do triage, right, like, Oh, we have a patient over here who’s got a hangnail, but they’re a professional pianist and they won’t be able to play well. So it is important. But then you’ve got somebody over here that’s got like, a gunshot wound to the leg. I mean to the ankle, and then a person And over here is the guy who literally like, you know, took too much. I don’t know maybe like whatever like it goes, it goes on a ranking scale of like you got somebody who’s literally having a stroke or a heart attack. You got to handle that one first. You know, it doesn’t mean the pianist isn’t important. But in the same way this pandemic has helped me realize that those things were fine when I had plenty of doctors and nurses, operating rooms and emergency rooms and sometimes right now, those aren’t there and I’m having to really think through what is most important and going and going all in is becoming more important. Thanks. That’s, that’s all I’ve got to say about that. I felt like Forrest Gump there.

Jeremy Weisz 37:48
What is most important right now, for you

Unknown Speaker 37:51
in your world

David Gonzalez 37:57
what’s most important is becoming real Clear on, on, on how to align what I’m working on with where I want to end up. And what really matters. And what really matters is my family, my health, and my my betterment of humanity. Like if I had to pinpoint three things, you know, because if I’m not healthy, those are the things two things don’t matter. Then if I don’t have my family, then like, I’m kind of alone. And like, but bettering you are gonna have those three things. It’s like, like, everything’s fine. Mm hmm. Everything’s great.

Jeremy Weisz 38:41
So they would always ask since this inspired Insider, what’s been a low moment that you had to push through. And also on the flip side, what’s been a proud moment that you’re especially proud of? So we’ll start with what’s been a challenging low moment.

David Gonzalez 38:59
Challenging little moment has been a one where I think everyone has at some point in their life thought of suicide. But I don’t think most people have gotten to the point A maybe, you know, you’re blessed if you haven’t gotten to the point where you actually started thinking about how to do it or started asking specific questions about it. And I did that once. Ah, two buckets and buckets of tears and an absolute excruciating now I know was tremendous, like depression based on egoic. Crushing I had I had over $130,000 worth of personal unsecured debt. That I didn’t know I had until I really started putting pencil to paper and all of our credit cards were maxed out. And I was I felt totally ashamed totally like a failure. And just like like the all the best option for my family and my legacy was to figure out how I could you know, not be on the planet anymore without anyone finding out that I did it. Part of me doesn’t even want to put that on recording because if one of these days I die in a weird way like I don’t want the life insurance companies to be like, he’s thought about this before.

But yeah, I I thought about that and

and it was horrendous and I got out of it. And now my net worth is more than triple My what my

Jeremy Weisz 41:02
How did you get out of that was such a low point to

David Gonzalez 41:06
the Well, I mean I got out of it because I didn’t want my wife and daughter to hear me bawling in the closet. I was literally class clothes myself in the bedroom closet cuz I knew that there was lots of you know clothing in there and stuff that would make it quite not because I was planning on doing it doing anything but I was that’s where I really finally let loose that like, ah, like, I’m a failure. I’m I’ve got all this debt. I have no way of getting out. I have nothing on the horizon. I don’t want this to be what my family goes through. I don’t want to like so I was like, what’s You know? And when I finally realized like, Okay, I got it like, big, clean up and wake up and wash myself out of this like blubbering mess I thought about a friend of mine who I had helped out have a really nice sticky situation. He was going through a really horrible divorce with a with a woman who had a an addiction and some clear mental illness. But the court but she did a good enough job of hiding the addiction and putting on a different face when she would go into court and she had an amazing attorney. So it was just really weird situation where I had to help him with some stuff that that was kind of I put myself at risk, but I it was the right thing to do was to help some of his pets that she was holding hostage and like, you know, it was weird time a lot a long time ago. And I thought of him because I had helped him in such a deep, important vulnerable point of his life that I reached out to him and I just felt like I can tell you what’s up and I’m thinking this and gave me the assignment to go to the mirror. And just know that this might take five minutes, it could take five hours, but to look deep into the core of my pupils, until I knew that I was absolutely positively looking, thinking, talking about me only mean nothing, nothing else distracting, and to just tell myself over and over this too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass until I believe it. And that I did not have permission to look away from the mirror until I absolutely started to believe it. And it took me about 1520 minutes and I started laughing and then I just, like broke the thing and like it broke that like dark cloud. Thanks for sharing

Jeremy Weisz 43:43
that, you know. First of all, it’s it’s really hard to share those things in and I I guarantee you that someone’s gonna hear that and who’s going through it or know someone who’s gonna go through this and give that advice to someone who’s going through a really tough time and so you sharing it is going to help even helps one person, you know, wish it will at least one it’s, you know, worth being vulnerable and sharing like such a tough thing to share. So I really appreciate that.

Unknown Speaker 44:13
Yeah. So

Jeremy Weisz 44:16
and Now on the flip side, a proud moment, a big milestone. Something you know, you always hear David. Six overnight success after 10 years or 20 years. Yeah, yeah. What’s been that? Maybe moment for you or a moment? There’s probably many moments but, um,

Unknown Speaker 44:36
well, there’s many thinking.

David Gonzalez 44:40
What I find was more of a family oriented and business oriented. Sure. But, um, and I have a handful of these. But there was one day that my daughter who’s 18 now but she was 17 at the time, I believe, wasn’t a real thing. funk, like a real funk. And she was just having, like, she she was just in a space where like a headspace that I could tell you she wasn’t clinically depressed. She was like, in that range. And just, I’ve done my best to not be an overbearing parent to be an inspirational parent and to give her the resources she needs if and when she asks or needs them. But we’ve always had kind of like a she’s been more of a mama’s girl than a daddy’s girl.

Jeremy Weisz 45:31
And I have two of those.

David Gonzalez 45:32
Yeah. And, and, and, and she’s always kind of resisted my advice and my wisdom, and it’s been a very painful thing. But every once in a while, we’ll have cracks in that, that. Like, it’s enough to even like make me emotional right now. But one such moment was she was having a really, really tough epoch like it was like a period of weeks. You know, for the epoch in the context of teenager, right? And there was, you know, and the long the short of it is she, I asked her if she was willing to do a little quick exercise. And she was in a low enough place that she’s a gal. Yeah, what is it and I said, I want you to take a piece of paper. And on the left side of the paper, I want you to write a create a little Thunderbolt. And on the right side, I want you to create a number. And I’m sorry, I messed up the punch line. I said, I want you to write the number of things on the left side, that are

things where you’re creating.
Unknown Speaker 46:50

And on the right side, I want the

David Gonzalez 46:54
things that you you have control over and that you can Like, what’s the word like, can can like, like, ignite that you can have agency over versus things that you don’t or, or can’t. And, and also it was it was create versus consume. And she made a list and I was expecting that the things that were going to be that it was going to be really long on the consume and no agency versus the other and it wasn’t it was the other way around. And I was like, What the hell because she was really good at knowing how much stuff she could control and dah dah, dah. And then so and the moment I had to on the fly, say, Okay, good. That’s step one. Step two is I want you to write a little lightning bolt and a number and the lightning bolt is how much energy Do you derive from it? And this the number is how much energy does it take for you to kick start it? Does that make sense? Yeah. So like surfing through tic Tock videos which have really fun and easy to like, it’s like, like never ending popcorn for your, for your like for your what is the little bit like the adrenaline rush, the better it’s another it’s another chemical but yeah, you get it. Um, like she she wrote down like how much how much gratification and satisfaction those things gave her and they were really low numbers but the the number of how much it took I was also really low and the things that have higher numbers had higher gratification and she couldn’t even finish the list and she’s like, Thank you dad. She threw her hands are on my my shoulders and like it was just like I’ve just streaming crying but from pride and from joy that, like 20 minutes later as to what she was up to, and she was still like making plans on how because she could on her own, do more of the things that that that required more of her to start to do. Does that make sense?

Jeremy Weisz 49:19
Yeah. So sum up really quickly, just so people can follow along. So there’s two columns, one on the left one on the right, the one on the left is the things that you actually have control over that you can create. And then on the right, is things that you don’t have control over that you don’t create. Is that right?

David Gonzalez 49:38
Yeah, you consume them. you consume them. Okay. Yeah. Are you like it’s either you consume them or you don’t have control over them, like, getting invited to asleep over that the other people in your core group did get invited to? Mm hmm. Right. Yeah.

Jeremy Weisz 49:54
Because I’m going to use this exercise. I want to make sure I’m clear out for my two daughters who are six and eight. So I’m sure in 10 years, I’ll be having this exact same conversation. So I want to make sure I get it right.

Unknown Speaker 50:06
So

Jeremy Weisz 50:08
the Can you don’t can, the right is you can soom

David Gonzalez 50:14
Yeah, you consume them or you don’t have control over them. Okay. And then the last is you create them or and you do have control, you do have control.

Jeremy Weisz 50:23
And then you write those down.

David Gonzalez 50:25
Just take inventory of how much how many activities they’re engaging in that are on the left versus on on the right. chances are they’re consuming more or participating and giving more value to things that they don’t have control over.

Jeremy Weisz 50:43
So focusing on the left column,

David Gonzalez 50:46
yeah, and was surprised me with was she had a bigger list on this side, on the left column. And I was like, What the hell and then I was like, okay, but now let’s let’s add these the energy that it gives The oath that it gives you and the energy that takes required to kick start it. And the things that were on the right were had very little energy and very little kickstart. And the things on the left had very high energy and very high kickstart.

Jeremy Weisz 51:13
But I had just identifying those things is powerful.

David Gonzalez 51:18
You actually have control over Yeah, and and like to because I think we just get into this funk, where we’re just like, Oh, I’m gonna do this thing. I’m gonna do this thing. I’m gonna do the same before you realize that like, shit, there’s not. Yeah, like, I’m engaging in so many things that I’ve used. And I’m just consuming or that I don’t have control over. Yeah, of course, I’m going to be. Yes. I love that.

Jeremy Weisz 51:41
And I know you have to hop off, David. So thank you. First of all, thank you so much. Where should we point people online? To learn more? Check out more of what you have going on. I mean, internetmarketingparty.com is obviously an obvious one. David Gonzalez agency, Davidgonzalezagency.com And Thank you so much,